Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) said he won’t run for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s open Kentucky Senate seat in 2026 after the former Senate Republican leader announced he would not seek another term. “I’ve

The race to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell is already on after he announced he would not run for reelection in 2026. NBC News national politics reporter Ben Kamisar and Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels join Ali Vitali to weigh in.

Shortly after Senator Mitch McConnell said he would not run for an eighth term, Daniel Cameron, a former Kentucky attorney general, said he would run for the seat in 2026. Two lawmakers and a businessman also hinted at running.

Republican U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, who acquired the moniker "Grim Reaper" as the longest-serving party leader in Senate history, said on Thursday he will not seek reelection in 2026, ending a decades-long career that helped steer American politics decisively to the right.

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends.

Mitch McConnell will end his Senate career with his most indelible mark on the nation’s federal courts and the chamber’s judicial confirmation process, a priority that changed the chamber’s rules and solidified a conservative Supreme Court for the foreseeable future.